I often read adverts in news papers - "With profound grief and sorrow, we inform you of the demise of.............."
And then I look at the life span of the person - in most cases it is between 75 to 90 years. And I wonder.
Yes, loosing a close one is never easy, no matter how young or old. But why have "grief" if someone has lead a good, full life and gone away? Why want them to carry on living and then suffer in old age ? I think one should be content if our elders pass away without the miseries which come with old age. More than 'age' , health should be the yardstick.
I know it is not in my hands, but I would be happy to cross to the other world by the time I reach 70. And please don't express grief and sorrow then, as I would have lived my life nearly the way and for as long as I wanted to.

Hello Gehan28, welcome back

Indeed why do people express grief and sorrow for someone who had lived a full life? It should be expressed like...." Name_____ has peacefully passed away and joined our Creator in heaven. He shall be fondly remembered for his loving memories by his family....." . One's lost should not be grieved with sorrow especially for those who were sick and in pain for a long time, you should be grateful that his suffering has ended. Just be thankful for the life one has lived and cherish the good memories they have shared to those people they left behind.

Thanks Dolphin for excellent illustration and a warm welcome.

Keep your jokes and life's lesson posts coming

llool

llool

I guess grief is not about age either. It is about a sense of losing someone that has been impacting our lives, rather they are 7 or 70.

I was taught that we should celebrate someone's passing because of their impact on our lives. Mourning is a purely selfish act. It is natural but it should not persist.

As long as we hold their memories of life they are never truly dead.

I choose to remember their life not the moment of their death. If asked, I will tell you all about them.

I think there is an unwritten code that a person wears black for a year to express mourning a loved one. Something like that?

Recently my nephew died. He was in severe pain from accute asthma. I was happy for him but still miss him and his contribution to my life. When I think of him, I smile because of the wisdom he gave me while he lived.

My sister was having a very hard time with the loss of her son. She told me that my view of Matt was how she saw him too and thanked me for the redirection of her grief. We will always miss him but we can't change the reality. He will never be gone until the last person to know him has passed from this world.

Because it's not really a choice.
It's a natural reaction/process you go through after suffering traumatic change.


Why do some people suffer through the misery of cancer treatment for an extra 6 months of life and some don't.
Does one choice or the other make one person "better" or "smarter" than the other?

Maybe one person would want the "suffering" one to continue living, because they know the "suffering" person would want to continue living even though there is "suffering."


Health is too subjective a yardstick, making it meaningless.
A lot of "health" is related to age.
There's also things like mental health and emotional health.

Very profound

I see at least two main things with this. The two aspects divide, between the personal, and the public/official/formal.

I have experienced death of people close to me as well. And I've participated in the lives of many other people who had to deal with deaths at various ages in their own lives.

In one aspect, it is simple: grieving and expressions of regret at the passing of a loved one is all about the real pain that the SURVIVORS are going through, even when it is somewhat clumsily expressed as though it is about the person who died.

In other ways, it can be much more subtle and involved. I know that I am SUPPOSED to feel god that my parent or friend "lived a good and full life," but really, that's no comfort to me, it feels more like a "yeah you lost, but at least you tried" kind of idea.

Really, even the "you wouldn't want them to go on getting older and more decrepit" thing is the same thing. You want to know what I actually DO want? I want them to go on forever, feeling good, and enjoying themselves as our lives continue to evolve. I can't have that, so I'll make do, but I'm not going to lie to myself and pretend I'm ACTUALLY glad that they are gone from my life.

As for the stuff posted in the papers and so on, that's just a classic example of how we turn repeated problems and pains we must all go through, into formalized rituals. We do things and say things in traditional ways, not because we prefer lies or cover stories, but because we again, want to care for the still living: by HAVING a fairly standard way to express our care for each other as one of us dies, we provide each other with a comforting framework to cushion our struggles, and allow each other to learn the lessons involved without embarrassment.

We are organisms. Biological organisms with cells that progressively become unable to divide uniformly. The result is that we age and die.

Some people die from other methods but the thing that most people miss, is the fact that, if there is life; there will be death of that life.

We wrap all kinds of ideas around the impacts of life and death that have nothing to do with life or death. We assign emotions to them where no emotions are required.
Life is life, the process of existing.
Death is the end of that process.
Death is natural and inevitable.

The emotional strings we attach to other living people or life itself are snapped or cut when they die. It is an emotional recoil that causes other emotions to intensify. A purely personal reaction.

It only happens when there is an emotional tie to the person that died.
Other people die and there is no emotional discomfort.
No personal reaction.

Place a rubber band on a peg and pull it till it snaps.
When a loved one dies, the emotional recoil is like the rubber band snapping and stinging your fingers. A completely normal result.

The problem comes to play when we remember the recoil and forget the rubber band before it broke.
Its because the recoil had a stronger immediate influence than the rubber band itself.

If we understand that life ends, we can understand our emotions when it happens.
There will still be a sting associated with it but we can control our emotional states and celebrate the person as they were and not the affect their passing caused.